The time-honored way of showing love in an Italian family is to offer food. Whether we're celebrating, mourning, happy, sad--if we're breathing, there's a table filled with great things to eat. Life's too short, so eat what you love and love what you eat.

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Empanadas (Beef Turnovers)

Every culture has its variation of stuffed dough/pastry. Empanadas are discs of pastry packed with meat or other fillings. They can be appetizer or main dish. Most often, I bake them (for health purposes), but as I was making these for a party, I decided to go full throttle and fry them (as they are intended to be). You can certainly make your own pastry, but Goya and a few other companies make perfectly delicious, frozen, ready-made discos. I've adjusted this recipe for personal taste and quantity.

On a lightly floured work surface, using a rolling pin, roll out discos until they're 1/2 inch larger in diameter. Spoon a heaping tbs or so of meat mixture into middle. Moisten around edge of disc with water, and pinch to seal closed or close with a fork by pressing tines all around the edge (my preferred method). You want these to stay closed while frying. You don't want to overfill these or they'll burst when frying. In reality, there's a lot more pastry to filling.

Fill a deep saucepan (or deep frying) with oil to a depth of 2 1/2 inches. Heat oil to 350 degrees and cook empanadas in batches until crisp and golden on both sides (frying 2 minutes on each side works for me).

Transfer to paper towels to drain. You can eat immediately or cool and reheat in a hot (400 degree) oven for approximately 10 minutes).
*****************************************TASTE NOTES
I absolutely adore the taste of these, but I'm hot happy with the ratio of pastry to filling. I'd prefer the size to be half of what it is using the ready-made discos. I guess the only solution is to make my own pastry in the future. While these taste wonderful baked, nothing beats the taste fried. I have a fantastic deLonghi deep fryer (it was a gift because I almost never fry) which has now been used a total of 3 times that made frying a snap. These were a hit at the party, so you may want to give them a try.